The 1st Hollow you kill after exiting Duke's prison always rewards a soft-humanity. This is independent of how other soft-humanity is rewarded, and can be exploited.

I was doing more testing on the mechanics of soft-humanity-acquisition, and found an interesting exception.

The first Crystal Hollow you kill after exiting the Duke's Archives prison always rewards a soft-humanity the first time you're there. It ignores the point buildup of the invisible "humanity meter" that is normally required otherwise, granting you a free soft-humanity as a gift.

I find this interesting because at first I thought it was a glitch, but then realized it must've been put in the game as compensation for the first Seath encounter. Their thought process was probably something like this- Think the forced death was unfair? Well, here's an easy and almost unavoidable-way to get some humanity back.

However, this can be exploited for easy soft-humanity farming. Perhaps with the addition of the warpable bonfire in 1.06, the game treats warps into Duke's Archives as a "fresh" visit. Meaning after warping into Duke's archives, if Seath is still alive, you can kill the first hollow you see for a soft humanity, every time. It's like the game thinks you're breaking out of the prison every time you warp. EDIT: You have to warp into Duke's from the Undead Parish bonfire.

Normally the method of killing enemies before a boss is dead allows for up to 10 soft-humanity to be obtained, but the warp trick in Duke's Archives ignores this. I just got 15 humanity warping in and out of Duke's Archives a bunch of times.

There is a video here of someone doing the humanity-warp glitch:
https://youtu.be/fc0MMb84sn4

But here's several videos that shows how it was put into the game to normally give the free humanity when you first escape the prison:
https://youtu.be/7kfpKItfK7w?t=10m01s (10 minutes in)
https://youtu.be/MGJxshvgek4?t=17m15s (17:15 in)
https://youtu.be/dViCPfxy-3U?t=20m30s  (20:30)

interesting.. this makes the idea of getting 99 humanity much less horrendous..

Serious_Much wrote:interesting.. this makes the idea of getting 99 humanity much less horrendous..

Chasm of the Abyss

What's all this then?

Damn From thought of pretty much everything. Wow!

Thanks for sharing, I'll be using this this week I'm sure.

Thanks again.

Feck could've used this last night when i screwed up in dukes.

I am not playing anymore, but this deserves a +1.
Who would've thunk there was still mysteries to be discovered?

Does it still work if you've defeated Seathe?

I was wondering about this specific instance, but I suppose it works the same as any other soft humanity farming does.

Hmm, this might be something worth exploiting. I do need a means of feeding Kaathe...

Awesome +1 for the post. This will help a lot for PVP builds.

Amazing how people are still finding things even now. Although I'm not sure from intended this to be farmable in this way, it is pretty useful to know.

Nice find. I love these soft humanity research. Thanks for the job


But I agree on Zechk, the farming of it should be considered an exploit :|

Wow. I never realized this. Next playthrough I'll use this. (I won't exploit it, but if I get invaded and killed, I'm definitely getting my humanity back!)

BIG TIME MASTER wrote:Who would've thunk there was still mysteries to be discovered?

I was happy to figure out what was going on. It is surprising that the game still offers some secrets, however obscure.

Other players had already discovered the 'free humanity' glitch, but the exact circumstances or cause for it weren't known. Players, on their way to Seath, noticed the Crystal Hollow underneath the staircase near the exit to the forest area kept rewarding a soft-humanity. Then they figured out that warping was what allowed it to happen over and over.

From there, I found out that it worked on seemingly any hollow, not just that one. I was testing the soft-humanity point system and got a free humanity from the same hollow as well, but only because I ran through the whole level without killing any enemies first. My first guess was that maybe the first Crystal Hollow killed in the level rewards a free humanity for some reason, but then I looked up a couple playthroughs on youtube and saw that the first hollows killed in the Archives didn't give anything. Then I fast forwarded to when the player(s) were leaving the prison, and found that it kept happening there.

If you warp into The Duke's Archives and run all the way back into the prison, the Crystal Hollows there won't give you the humanity. It has to be outside the prison area.

Great discovery. +1